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A friend of mine came over to the island today to do a bit of winter birding. The recent cold snap has frozen the reserve, with the result that most of the bird interest stays outside the seawall on the Swale. As a result, we decided to head elsewhere today. First stop was the beach at Minster, on the...

Well, here we are again. After a lot of investigation & loads of techy stuff waaay over my head, the bottom line is that I am now able to get onto the RSPB website from Elmley. So hopefully, normal service has been resumed. It's been about a month since my last update and in terms of water...

Time for another of my rather infrequent updates, as I STILL can't access the RSPB website from Elmley. We're still trying to fix the problem, but it's a slow process. Highlight of the month so far was the discovery of a grey phalarope on the Flood reservoir on Saturday night. It was still...

...and I missed this one too! I was tied to the office for most of this morning, but escaped late am to do the various checks around the reserve. A quick glance at the "additional sightings" sheet in the carpark revealed that some lucky visitor had connected with our 2nd record of the year...

Well, the promised sunshine finally arrived today. And what a difference! Splendidly sunny (although still with a cool northerly breeze), it's really starting to feel more like spring. One of the sure signs was evident this afternoon, when a distinctive squealing call revealed a male marsh harrier...

After yesterdays beautiful, almost spring-like day, with wall-to-wall sunshine, singing skylarks & the first tentative signs of lapwing display, things were sadly back to normal today. Dull, dull, dull. Still the gloom was brightened briefly at lunchtime when i nipped down to check pumps/sheep etc...

It's not every day that I add a new species to my Elmley list (I think you'd have to go back to the May 25th "double-whammy" of black-winged pratincole and hoopoe in 2009. Now that was a day...!); and even less often that I get to use the ever-so-slightly disparaging term for a red...

We had to comb our hair and run a hoover over the office today, as we welcomed a couple of VIP's to the reserve. Chris Corrigan, the SouthEast Regional Director and Mike Henderson, a Lib Dem councillor on Swale Borough Council visited and were gven the grand tour. The weather could have been better...

Another rather dreary, cold start to the day, with grey skies and a keen NE'ly wind that quickly froze my fingers. And then in the early afternoon, the sun came out! What a difference - still cold, but you can cope with it when the sun's shining. All "the usual" birds of prey were...

A busy day on the reserve today, with the grazier coming in to pick up the last of his cattle, so we were out first thing to get them into the pens, ready for the lorry to arrive. We may bring in some other animals, just to "tickle" the sward a bit, but there's not much cow food left. Still...

Well, there's no denying that we could use a bit of rain, but what a dismal day! The steady rain set in pretty much from the off and then didn't relent all day. Naturally, our cattle grazier had decided to come up today to take off the first lot of cows that will be calving in the next month...

A slightly belated new year's greeting from Elmley. I have been back at the reserve since the 30th, but haven't found the time to update what's been going on here. So here's a quick summary. Natalie found an Egyptian goose by the access track on Boxing Day and up to 4 have been present...

Having missed out on the snow that's been sweeping the country further north, Kent finally got the covering that's been on the cards for a while now. Funnily enough, there was only the one car visited the reserve today: they made it to the carpark, but didn't venture any further...

Yesterday gave us the first real blast of winter at Elmley. No snow, unlike other parts of the country, but leaden skies and a biting northerly wind were a taster for what's to come over the next week or so. Despite the cold, the livestock are still doing a good job maintaining the sward out on the...

Following Rob Clements rough-legged buzzard that I missed on Monday, Phil Sharp came in on Wednesday (when I was away from the reserve) and found 2 shorelarks near to Southfleet hide. He even managed to get a photo. As far as I know, this is the first record of these fantastic northern larks at Elmley...

Our cattle grazier came to the reserve today to take the first animals back to their winter quarters. He likes his cows to calf indoors, although we've already had 2 un-expected deliveries this year on site. Fortunately, both calves have done well, but they were amongst the first load to go, along...